EEC Advisory Council and EEC Advisory Groups

EEC Advisory Council

Pursuant to MGL Ch. 15D, there is a state advisory council on early education and care, the members of which represent a reasonable geographic balance and reflect the diversity of the commonwealth in race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. All appointees have a special expertise or interest in high quality early childhood education and care and represent a mix of representatives of the early childhood community, the civic, labor, and business communities, academics, parents, teachers, social service providers, and health care providers. The advisory council may review and offer comments on any rules or regulations before promulgation by the board, and may, from time to time, make recommendations to the board that it considers appropriate for changes and improvements in early education and care programs and services.

EEC’s Advisory Council has meets in its entirety four times a year annually. Expertise groups also meet between each full Advisory meeting in order to maximize focused, relevant and in-depth conversations with multiple stakeholder types. The following six expertise groups meet:

The goal of the Higher Education for English Language Learners (ELL) program is to provide opportunities for English language learners to access higher education and receive content to improve their practice with children birth to 5 by:

Creating a framework across curricula and teaching methods that helps bridge access to higher education for ELL educators;

Preparing ELL educators to benefit from college level courses in English and to matriculate in a degree program;

Ensuring that ELL educators receive the immediate content knowledge needed to work effectively with children and families while they learn English;

Meeting the high demand for bilingual early education and care professionals who can competently serve the growing numbers of linguistically diverse young children and families;

Supporting multi-lingual early childhood educators as they navigate degree attainment and quality improvement through the tiered Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS)

Serving as a working model that can be replicated across the state through public and private institutions.

The Aspire Institute at Wheelock College will lead an initiative to design and deliver an innovative program to help educators who are English language learners (ELL) access higher education while providing the immediate content needed to improve practice with children birth to age 5, in formal early education and care settings. The focus of the grant will target paraprofessionals and assistant teachers whose primary language is not English, with the goal of equipping them to effectively assist children who are dual language learners by achieving higher academic coursework and credentials themselves.

As EEC’s media partner, WGBH will employ a series of research-based digital strategies to enhance ongoing efforts to build an effective early childhood education workforce and family support system in the Commonwealth. WGBH will develop a robust set of media-based curricular resources to build the capacity of preschool classroom teachers and family daycare providers to promote the growth of young children, and to support and engage parents in their role as their child’s first teacher. The centerpiece of this work is the production of a “digital hub”, a free, online platform that will feature a centralized library of these resources, direct links to related materials, and customized pathways to guide teachers, parents and other care providers through the site.

Membership

Content Advisors

English Language Arts (Ages 3–5)Jeanne ParatoreBoston University School of Education

As part of the Early Learning Plan, EEC is embarking on a Peer Assistance and Coaching model. The particular focus for the MA PAC project will be peer coaching. Peer coaching combines the promise of coaching as an effective strategy and the reality that the existing early childhood teachers and directors may be well-equipped to support one another’s practices. Massachusetts PAC will promote the use of training and coaching methods that give teachers opportunities to see and try out effective practices and receive feedback about these efforts to improve those educator competencies. Institute for Education and Professional Development (IEPD) is working with EEC and various groups to design the appropriate PAC model for Massachusetts pilot the model and then, using lessons learned from the pilot, bring the model to scale in four years.

The goal of the Validation of Educator Competency is to identify and validate the factors that result in educator competency in helping children achieve desired outcomes in three key areas: social-emotional development, literacy and numeracy. The American Institution for Research (AIR) will lead an initiative to validate the factors inherent in educator competency based on analysis of effective classroom practice with children birth to age 5 as defined by their achievement of desired outcomes in three key areas, social-emotional development, literacy, and numeracy. AIR will also analyze the effectiveness of using research-based digital strategies to enhance the abilities of educators and parents to support children's healthy growth and development in the areas outlined above.